


Monstrum

by firelord65



Series: Fecky's Whumptober Oneshots [18]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27094978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelord65/pseuds/firelord65
Summary: When Michael was six, her father taught her that there were no monsters under the bed or in the closet. He made her laugh and giggle when he showed her the spaces there were only filled with dust and her abandoned socks.
Series: Fecky's Whumptober Oneshots [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950469
Kudos: 2
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Monstrum

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a hot minute since I worked on some Michael Burnham fic. 
> 
> Whumptober Day 18: Panic! At the Disco - Panic Attacks | ~~Phobias | Paranoid~~

When Michael was six, her father taught her that there were no monsters under the bed or in the closet. He made her laugh and giggle when he showed her the spaces there were only filled with dust and her abandoned socks. It was a teaching moment and a father-daughter experience that gave her peace when she turned over in the night and awoke in her room alone. 

She knew it had to be true because her father had said so. That was that. 

* * *

When Michael was nearly ten, she learned that monsters were very much real and could - and did - take her parents away from her forever. She hid underneath her bed with the dust bunnies and her portable telescope while Klingons butchered her parents before eating their dinner.

Her father had been wrong. 

* * *

When Michael was eleven, she was once again taught that there were no monsters, only people with bad intentions. There were no bad species, no black-and-white storybook villains who were single-minded in their desires to be evil. People were driven by motivations and by personal, selfish desires and that was all. 

It was the least succinct of the answers she had arrived at previously and for it Michael took pride in knowing that it was maybe, finally, correct.

That still didn’t stop her brain from seeing the monster within the Klingons that she read about in her history lessons. Each time that the insignia flashed on her lesson screen, Michael felt her heart pound and her skin grow clammy. Her tongue would seize up and the teaching AI would lecture her on how she was expected to have already learned this information. This was her fifth remedial course. Michael wished the interface had been designed for touch controls. At least then she could have punched at the multiple choice at random and forced her way to the next lesson. 

* * *

When Michael awoke in the medical treatment center on the  _ Shenzhou _ , she once again felt her heart race roughshod through her chest. She didn’t see the bed she was on or the sheets pooled about her hips. Her mind brought her back to the unknown artifact and the crisply polished insignia that had haunted her nightmares as a child. 

Closing her eyes, Michael sought refuge in the darkness instead. Her mind may have been supplying the memories to overwhelm her, but Michael would not be held hostage to her own brain. She cleared aside the visuals first. Each time that she peeled away one age - the artifact, the lesson plans on Vulcan, the raiders at her parent’s home - the next was ready to take over. Until there weren’t any memories left to step up. 

Her chest rattled with each shaking breath. Awareness of her fingers clutching the sheets between her fists came next. The temperature of the air was uncomfortably cool on her skin where she had been peeled out of her damaged uniform. Every piece of herself was observed, catalogued, and shelved all to bring Michael Burnham back to center. 

She peeled her eyes open and took a final calming breath. 

There were no monsters here. 


End file.
